


paper faces on parade

by dameegocentrique



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Jon and Sansa Are Not Related, Modern Royalty, Past Abortion, Past Child Abuse, Sansa Stark is a Targaryen, Targaryen!Sansa, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2018-09-28 10:57:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10095698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dameegocentrique/pseuds/dameegocentrique
Summary: She has always wanted to be a Stark. But not this way. Never this way.





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I don't like giving much away, so bear with me! It will be fun, I swear.
> 
> Title is an excerpt from "Masquerade" in the Phantom of the Opera.

**Chapter One**

 

 

Loud upbeat EDM rang through the penthouse, along with the sounds of people laughing and partying. The spacious flat was filled with people to the brim, from celebrities to ordinary university students. No one could say that Daenerys Targaryen didn't know how to host a party.

 

Sansa Targaryen flitted through the crowd, barely hiding her unease at the noise and at the appreciative yet guarded looks headed her way. She had a role to play today, the role she always had to play since she came screaming into the world, and she'll be damned if she slacked. _Family, duty, honor_ were the words of her favorite mentor's House, and if she believed and lived by it enough, she might let herself believe that the red of her hair was Tully red and that Catelyn Stark _nee_ Tully was her mother.

 

Sansa's head was filled with fancies like that, foolish they may be. Catelyn Stark was strong enough and eligible enough to be a mother of little ladies and lords, and Sansa's dead wildling mother was not. Better be a Tully than a naturalized Blackfyre. 

 

But Blackfyres don't exist anymore. The shame of bastardy was eliminated by the Council of the Lords and the Natural Parliament fifty years prior to her birth. No more Snows, Sands, or Stones. But Sansa likes to call herself a Blackfyre in secret, daydreaming about the Blackfyres of the long gone past, even secretly owns a fake Twitter account by the name of Alayne Blackfyre. She was unnatural, unloved, unprotected. She doesn't feel like a Targaryen.

 

Nobody talks much about Sansa Targaryen. And if they do, it is to shake their heads and gossip about her controversial history, of how she came to be. Former King Aerys II, the Seven bless his soul, deemed it proper to sire another daughter with a daughter of a Magnar at the height of violence between the government and Free Folk separatist terrorists.  The Thenns were one of the few respected Free Folk clans recognized by the state; and as Free Folk themselves, they were torn between the deep sated distrust for the state by their kin and their position in society. Alysane Thenn's sudden pregnancy, out of wedlock it may be, cemented the hold of the Targaryens over the most organized and distinguished clan of the Free Folk. The terrorists and their sympathizers have shunned the Thenns since then. 

 

Speculations about the backstory of Alysane's shame went beyond her grave and followed around her daughter's life like a ghost. Were they in love? Probable but off-putting, since the late King was at most forty years older than the attractive and shy Alysane Thenn, and he wasn't known for being romantic. Was she forced? Perhaps, since no declarations of love and displays of affection filled their relationship, and it was so sudden into the King's three-months-fresh all-out war campaign against the separatists. But it was too reckless, even for the mad King, because if it was true otherwise the overly proud Thenns would have quickly broken their peace with the royal family a long time ago. 

 

No, it was something else, something much, much more valuable than their kinsmen's freedom that made the Thenns choose to support the sovereignty of the state rather than break away from it and the Targaryens and the rest of Westeros to quickly accept the bastard red-haired Targaryen princess. It made Sansa itch thinking about it sometimes, like she was doing now, because she felt that knowing the reason somehow would make her existence more easily understood for her. But she only knew about her matriarchal side from the rare moments they were in the news, with the Thenns holing themselves up in their estate beyond the Wall after Sansa's birth, and the sole Thenn she has ever met was Sigorn Thenn, a senior from her high school two years ago. Sigorn ignored her every time their paths crossed, but sometimes she caught him looking at her with a strange look on his face.

 

Sansa would only realize right this day that it was pity that she saw on her cousin's face, and mixed with a little bit of longing.

 

She was now starting to get sick of receiving that look. 

 

Harrold Hardyng was standing in one corner of the room, sporting a wide smile and a glass of scotch in his hand. He was surrounded by other rich and attractive playboys, top eligible bachelors of Westeros, all of them laughing about whatever boys like him like to laugh about, and scouring the crowd for their flavor of the night. Sansa made the stupid mistake of accidentally crossing glances with him and watched his face morph into the familiar look of fake guilt and well-hidden arrogance. Harry Hardyng tried his best to understand Sansa Targaryen's clinginess and insecurities, oh yes, but it really wasn't meant to be.

 

She wanted to kill him so badly, ask a loyal Kingsguard to do the job for her, end all the fresh vicious rumors surrounding her again, but she wouldn't. No. _A lady's armor is her manners,_ and Sansa would rather date Harrold Hardyng again than afford to be a stereotypical rebellious orphan. She hated stereotypes. They brought too much attention and none at all. She deemed herself better this way, disappointing people with her lack of capacity to follow through with their clichéd expectations that primarily meant her personal self-destruction. 

 

Sansa sighed. That's enough posturing for the night. If only Mya and Myranda were here, she would've stayed out 'til the cows came home. Or until sunrise. Whatever. Without Mya and Myranda, she was done. Only the two girls could convince her to stay out late, Myranda Royce with her scandalous words and brazen personality, and Mya Stone with her quick comebacks and mischievous self. Sansa shouldn't be so dependent on them, but that's a story for another day.

 

Sighing one more time, Sansa dumped her red cup in a nearby trashcan and grimaced at how trashed Dany's kitchen looks right now. She made her way to the rooms above, grateful that the penthouse had a guest room, one on the far end of the corridor. 

 

As she walked to the far end of the corridor, the door to Dany's room opened. Stepping out were her silver-haired sister, laughing loudly with a dark-haired man.

 

Sansa took a sharp intake of breath and had the urge to run away as fast as she can. But she was Sansa Targaryen, so she stood her ground and planted an impassive look on her face.

 

The couple stopped laughing and glanced at Sansa once they noticed they weren't alone anymore. One had an instant bright smile on her face, the other went pale. 

 

"My baby sister!" Daenerys opened her arms and went to Sansa, hugging her tightly. Trying to stop her heart from leaping out of her throat, Sansa hugged her back, albeit not as tightly. Daenerys was used to it, hugging a sibling who wouldn't do it with much enthusiasm as hers, so she didn't mind. "You made it!" her ethereally beautiful sister almost screamed in her ear so Sansa pulled back and smiled her usual fond smile. 

 

"I like your parties, Dany, wouldn't miss it for the world," Sansa replied, and grinned as Dany rolled her eyes. Dany was older by four years, but had more childish moments than her younger red-haired sister. "Whatever you say, Sansa. Are you---" Dany stopped and furrowed her eyebrows, finally noticing where Sansa was. Sansa's heart couldn't beat any faster than it did now. 

 

"Why are you retreating this early? Did someone---"

 

"No, Dany, I'm fine. I'm just tired from the flight, I guess," Sansa hastily replied. Dany's face morphed from burgeoning anger to concern. Sansa's heartbeat calmed down. 

 

"Okay. Get your rest now, little dove," Dany then patted her cheek and let herself be guided away by the arm in her middle. She kissed the dark-haired man's cheek and smiled up at him lovingly. Something inside Sansa's chest clenched, and she gritted her teeth. _Softie Sansa._ She hates herself right now.

 

As she started to tear her eyes away from the couple, the dark-haired man snuck a glance at her. Sansa suddenly felt rooted to the ground, trapped under soulful grey eyes that regarded her with an emotion she couldn't figure out.

 

But the moment was over as soon as it began, and he turned away as they went down the stairs. She breathed a sigh, of relief, or of anything she didn't know. Sansa turned and walked to her room, her heart beating fast anew.

 

Jon Snow always had the most beautiful eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you go, my Targaryen!Sansa fic! GRR Martin would be so mad. I'm so sorry, you god of death, but you deserve it for fucking up your deadlines! WINDS OF WINTER, PUH-LEASE!!
> 
> I asked my boyfriend to beta-read this. I asked, "So... Any points for improvement?" He was rubbing his chin and was like, "Hmm... It was good overall, but I think you could've---" *makes gurgling/choking/idk noises* "---put the smut first? Like, Sansa sucking Jon's dick?"
> 
> Suffice to say I've banned him from beta reading my stuff. Any takers? Also, leave comments! I love comments. Comments are the shit.
> 
> [UPDATE] Corrected some errors, like a meaningless sentence close to the end and Jon's eyes being brown. Sorry, Kit. Not today.


	2. chapter two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were both of the North, she wanted to whine. We are both of the North. Don't you remember?
> 
> Not anymore, Life whispered.

**Chapter Two**

 

Sansa laid her head on the cold concrete tiles of the penthouse' shared bathroom. Waiting for the nausea to subside, the Targaryen princess pressed her cheeks and forehead to the bathroom floor. Used and crumpled pieces of toilet paper surrounded her; her auburn hair spread around her head like a halo.

 

She's sure she looks like a total waste.

 

The party went on until sleep finally took Sansa. But even in the early hours of morning, when the party was over and done (Daenerys was responsible like that), it wasn't the party sounds that disturbed her already fitful sleep.

 

It was the sounds emanating from her half-sister's bedroom that did it, loud and self-gratifying, and since then she was unable to sleep.

 

Sansa contemplated her situation. This was madness. She was just about to begin her short respite from the hectic theater rehearsals and was waiting for her flight when her half-sister called her phone and pleaded with her to go to her party. She should not have eagerly taken Daenerys' hospitality and acquiesced to her pleading. It was bad enough that after all these years she realized that was still like a child, eager to feel like she belonged, dropping anything even her dignity just to gain some semblance of acceptance from her paternal family. Bad enough that she stayed up for most of the night, putting up with _that_.

 

So now Sansa was stuck with a sickness much worse than hangover, even though she vowed never to touch alcohol again. It was getting worse, she noticed, but she paid no mind. It might be the stress of the rehearsals and lack of proper sleep for months now. She was hesitant to go to a doctor; it didn't feel like dying yet.

 

_On the other hand, it might be..._

 

She whisked the thought away as fast as it came. No. It's not possible.

 

But the thought affected her more than she expected, so bile rose in her throat again, and she bent over the toilet to relieve herself.

 

After a few moments of heaving and heavy breathing, Sansa felt the world and her stomach turn right again. Pulling a wad out of the toilet paper roll she unceremoniously dumped by her side, she wiped her face clean from sweat and snot. She stood up and cleaned up the mess she made.

 

* * *

"You're not supposed to be here."

 

Warmth rushed to her cheeks as soon as she heard the too familiar low and quite voice. She looked up and looked right back at Jon Snow's glare indignantly. There was thrill, there was want, but right now, she wanted blood.

 

"This is my home---"

 

"No, it's Dany's. You're trying to make a point. You're failing," he interrupted her coldly. Cold, like the North. _They were both of the North_ , she wanted to whine. _We are both of the North. Don't you remember?_

 

_Not anymore,_ Life whispered. 

 

To her horror tears sprang to her eyes. She felt she looked like a headstrong toddler with tears in her eyes but a stubborn angry frown on her face. Toddler. Ha, pathetic.

 

She blinked quickly and tried to calm herself. But it only made things worse. "N-news flash, Snow. It's not yours too. Will never be yours, I daresay," she managed to breathe out and growl as menacingly as her family's sigil could. She moved around him, trying to get back up the stairs to her room again (and do something like pack quickly) when she felt a firm hand grab her upper arm.

 

Thrill. There it was again. But Sansa drew her arm back as violently as her anger could. Jon ignored it. "Are you sick?" he inquired. A tinge of concern lit up in his eyes amidst the ocean of indifference in there. Sansa wanted to laugh bitterly.

 

And huff bitterly she did. Rolled her eyes for good measure too. She was going for toddler today. There's bile rising in her throat again and she won't dare open her mouth. She's humiliated herself too much for twenty two years, a number of time too for Jon Snow. She wasn't keen on adding another hour or minute to that number.

 

She moved to walk away again when he grabbed her again. She tried to jerk back when he spoke again. "You didn't drink, didn't you? Dany told me you don't drink anymore." He trained his gray eyes on her, dark and scrutinizing her face. "Either you lied or she did."

 

Sansa sneered. She must look like a hag right now, messy hair and bitter mien. She tried pulling her arm back but he held it tighter. "Did you take the pill?" he half-whispered, half-growled. 

 

She stopped. Time stopped. Everything stopped. She glanced up at Jon's face and saw he looked as deathly pale and as nervous as she probably was. 

 

Gods.

 

Fucking.

 

Damn it.

 

She pulled her hand back, wrapped her hands tightly around her mouth and ran back up the stairs. She didn't hear him run after her, nor did he make any sound except a desperate whisper of "Sansa!" at her back. Upon reaching her room she pulled open one of the windows and threw her guts up. It was a penthouse, a penthouse with a garden, a penthouse with a garden and housekeepers and just had a party the night before. It would be easy to explain.

 

Pathetic Sansa Targaryen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This explains some things, right? Maybe I should end this now? No?
> 
> Heh, kid. Will be back after, I don't know. Kidding! 
> 
> It was this particular chapter that was very difficult to write. I had everything planned out and outlined and all. It's just that every version of this chapter never summed up what I really wanted this chapter to be like. Because, as you can see, it pretty much lays down what this fic will be about. The hard part's over, I will definitely update this sooner. Pinky promise.


	3. chapter three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A future is revealed.

**Some Years Ago**

 

Jon Snow hadn't always been that cold to Sansa.

 

He was grumpy, yes, but he knew how to smile. He liked brooding, only lightened up when he was with Robb Stark, and obsessed over Westeros' medieval period. 

 

Sansa wondered if he still did that, read volumes upon volumes of stories about the Westeros of old, recounts everything he knew about history with a special twinkle in his gray eyes. 

 

"Sansa is a Northern name, you know," was his way of introducing himself to her when they first met ten years ago. He was an awkward and lanky twelve-year-old, she was the eight-year-old Targaryen princess who her king brother left in a home of strangers in the North. A stupid little girl.

 

Sansa huffed then and rolled her eyes. "It's a stupid name," she replied, crossing her arms and preparing to stomp away from the boring Stark ward. 

 

"It's a pretty name, stupid," Jon Snow defensively replied, annoyed at the Southerner princess. "Sansa was the name of several Northern ladies, one of them Sansa Stark the Red Wolf, a Queen in the North!" he cried.

 

His face reddened when Sansa turned around and nailed him with a scrutinizing look. Eight-year-old Sansa was frightening. Twelve-year-old Jon Snow knew that.

 

"Tell me more," Sansa replied.

 

* * *

 

**A Month After Daenerys' Party**

 

Sansa stared at the dark waters of Blackwater Bay, lost in her thoughts. The broken pieces of a champagne flute glinted on the dark rocks at the bottom of The Red Keep's balcony, just below the balcony where Sansa stood.

 

Pregnant. She's pregnant. 

 

Sansa's throat tightened, her whole body shook. Numb shock washed away by the tears now steadily dripping down her face. It happened. It definitely did. The resulting proof was right there, now stuck in the back of her mind, a white stick with two pink lines and a doctor's sad and pitying gaze.

 

Here, no sounds from the ongoing ball happening a floor from Sansa's balcony can be heard. Sansa was truly alone like she wanted.

 

She tried to drink, for her sanity or whatever, she tried to. But as soon as the bubbly drink reached the back of her throat she threw it all up at the waters of Blackwater Bay. The waves washed away her sick, but her shaking didn't stop.

 

She can't. She couldn't do it anymore. Drinking was a part of the life she once knew. A big part. She's left it now. She hates it now.

 

Drinking... It repulsed her. But the truth is, almost everything repulsed Sansa now. For the past months, she had been hiding that fact.

 

After her harsh confrontation with Jon the day after Daenerys' party, Sansa immediately packed her bags and left Daenerys' penthouse suite, mumbling her farewells to Daenerys and Jon as she shuffled to the door. She didn't let Daenerys' insistence that they have dinner together deter her from leaving and instead gave a convincing lie about a sudden change in her schedule and a lame _"I'm sorry, Dany, but you know how it is"_. She gave an excuse about sudden changes in her rehearsal's schedules and even did a fake sigh. _"Dany, you know how demanding the theater can be,"_ using her profession as a theater actress sway her half-sister's mind. 

 

After that bit of spectacular acting on Sansa's part (the result of receiving the best of Essosian theater education), Daenerys gave her leave, albeit with fake disappointment on her face. Sansa was relieved when she got to leave Dany's penthouse but felt a slight pang at Dany's look on her face. She was used to family members faking their concern, so it wasn't a surprise that Dany would do the same, but what slightly felt not okay was what it implicated: more alone time with Jon. 

 

So she was right, she definitely had to get away from that place. Dany's penthouse was where Jon Snow's question hang in the air, one that would surely keep badgering her and drive her to sanity.

 

But moving a few kilometers away did not change anything. The demons followed her to her flat in King's Landing, whispering in the back of her mind, lingering over her every day. 

 

_"Did you take the pill?"_

 

She fainted once during rehearsal and regained consciousness immediately which got her waking up to her crew mates' worried faces. The director, Ricardo Grant, sent her home immediately. 

 

It was right then and there that Mya and Myranda decided to take her to the doctor, noting the redhead's constant pallor and retching. But Sansa made them sit down and told them of her suspicions.

 

After a minute of dumb silence, two hours of questioning and thirty minutes retching (solely on Sansa's part), Myranda found a way to procure a pregnancy kit and an appointment with Sansa's doctor. 

 

Pregnant. She's pregnant.

 

Sansa took a deep, cleansing breath. Funny how it seemed that, in some way, the past had a way of catching up with her. Her cornflower blue eyes sought the flute's pieces on the rocks of Blackwater Bay but found nothing. They've been swept away. It was like it didn't even happen.

 

But something did happen. Sansa could make it like this didn't happen. She had the money, the connections, and the means only if she wanted to. She can make it all go away.

 

Will she?

 

She was pregnant. Two pink lines on a white stick and a doctor's pitying gaze was proof enough. She cried, screamed, and cursed after the visit at Dr. Tarly's office, unable to believe her... her... disposition. Mya rightly said that she was royally fucked.

 

Royally fucked. Yes, four months ago. Why didn't she take the pill?

 

Sansa did not have the heart to tell anyone aside from Myranda and Mya. But now she's running out of time. She was four months into her pregnancy. She didn't know what to think of that. There would be so many questions to answer and judgments to endure. Sansa was bracing herself for hatred too. She deserved it. She remembered Jon Snow's coldness and Joffrey Baratheon's sneer and Daenerys' apathy. Can she handle it? Can she handle more?

 

The redhead princess wrapped her arms around her torso. Her hands slowly crept down to her lower abdomen, feeling the slight, almost undetectable bump down there.

 

Sansa took another deep breath. As the days went by, panic and depression waned into resignation, then to acceptance. She sometimes still felt the anxiety, felt her throat seizing up and her lungs become constricted at the thought of being pregnant.

 

However, a deep yearning arose within her, and with it, a dream of doing better. She could be happy. She could love. She can make a better world for the child growing inside her. She can teach them to fight and to do better. To live more. To live better than she ever did.

 

She could have someone to love, someone to hold. Like the songs.

 

Straightening her back, Sansa pulled out a mint candy from her purse and popped it into her mouth. The coolness that exploded in her mouth gave her resolve. She was going to face this. But first, she had to talk to Rhaegar.

 

Rhaegar was set to do a tour in Dorne tomorrow. She has to tell him tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update is in two days! Also I'm on Tumblr at http://dame-egocentrique.tumblr.com <3


	4. chapter four

 

"This child can diminish rumors of the demise of the Targaryen reign, Rhaegar! I can--- We can--- I can marry someone and give them the Targaryen name---"

"A great privilege, isn't it? To give the Targaryen name to a mere commoner," Rhaegar snapped, growing irate for the first time at his obstinate half-sister. Sansa found him standing inside a library not far from the king's office, holding a half-filled glass of scotch and deep in thought. With the speech and the ceremony both done, her half-brother explained that he didn't see the point of mingling with the guests.

There was a time he did see the point when Queen Elia Martell was still alive.

 "Do you have someone in mind? Is it the child's father?" he prodded.

Sansa abruptly stopped her frantic tirade and panicked. She didn't plan this far. Gods, she was stupid for not planning extensively.

Rhaegar was always dangerously calm like he was now. But his jaws are clenched tight and his deep purple eyes showed an emotion far worse than irateness. For all his solemnity, Rhaegar still had their sigil's fire deep inside him and hid it very well.

He was showing a dragon's fury right now. Sansa felt so small all of a sudden, dwarfed by the power her brother fully yielded right now.

Stupid. So, so stupid.

"I... I don't," she answered in a small voice, a cornered animal with her claws retracted.

"Don't what, Sansa?" was Rhaegar's harsh reply. Panic rose anew in Sansa's chest, threatening to take over her. She shouldn't have come this quickly. This was beginning to be a mistake.

But Sansa couldn't stop the tears starting to fall again from her eyes. Upsetting Rhaegar still struck something in her, like a childish instinct she never grew out of. Rhaegar was the father she wished she had, but a brother she loved all the same. Of all the pain the Targaryens have caused her, Rhaegar was the difference that made the madness and indifference worth enduring. 

"Did you consent to it? Were you forced?" the King pursued his interrogation. Sansa clenched her fists together on her lap and bit her lip, tears streaming down her face as the rich fabric of her blood red dress blurred in her vision.

 

"ANSWER ME!" Rhaegar yelled. 

"Yes! I mean, no, no Rhaegar! I wanted it!" Sansa finally cried. A sob caught in her throat as she did. 

"I am so stupid! I'm so sorry... Oh gods, I'm so sorry..." She covered her face and sobbed loudly, pitiful sounds making their way out of her throat. She felt like the eight-year-old girl Rhaegar sent away to stay in Winterfell, clutching at his clothes and begging for forgiveness.  _No, Rhaegar,_  she wanted to cry.  _I wasn't forced. I wanted it because I was stupid._

Remorse coursed through Sansa like a lava flowing from a volcano. She felt the heat of her sins flowed over her skin, through her veins, leaving marks on her body for Rhaegar to see.  _I am exactly what they think I am,_  Sansa thought.  _A mistake._

She heard him move and kneel in front of her. Taking his younger half-sister into his arms, Rhaegar rubbed Sansa's back as she wept on his shoulder. He held her like he did, Sansa remembered, back when she was a broken little girl without a place in the world, a mistake in the eyes of many.

It took a long time before Sansa cried out all of the tears she had to give, her exhausted body leaning on Rhaegar for support. Her dress' skirts was a crumpled mess between them. Her sorrow was starting to show in the fabric.

"You've always been the strongest of us, Sansa," he said as Sansa was starting to calm down. Rhaegar took a deep breath and drew back, looking into Sansa's tear-filled deep blue eyes that looked so much like his and so different at the same time.

"But you cannot have a bastard," he ominously declared.

Terror surged inside her chest. Does he mean---?

"Rhaegar! No! No no no please no... Don't make me do this!" She cried and clutched her brother's broad shoulders, desperation filling her voice. Suddenly she felt like wailing and tearing her hair right there. She can't be asked to do this. She can't. She'll do something this time, run away to a place where they'll never see her again, or... or kill herself maybe. She can't lose this child, her child. She can't. She foolishly felt like eight years old again, holding her brother tightly like a lifeline. The terror of being forced to do what she didn't want swelling up inside her again. 

_Don't send me away, Rhaegar! Please don't!_

A distant voice. A distant memory now back to haunt her in the present.

Rhaegar cringed instead and held Sansa's face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said in a soft, apologetic voice. "I didn't mean that you abort the baby, Sansa." He paused when Sansa winced. "What I mean to say is, you have to give the child a father. The Parliament will not stand for this. You have to marry."

Sansa stared dumbstruck at Rhaegar.

Of course. Of course. She knew that. She knew that even before coming here.

With the creation of the Parliament, the monarchy's powers have been limited. Part of the reforms had been to make sure that the royal family kept themselves in line. That meant that the Parliament, to some extent, decides the royal family's personal matters, from succession to marriage. With Viserys, Aegon, and Rhaenys six feet underground, all that stands between Daenerys and Sansa's succession to the crown were gone. Now Daenerys was the heir apparent, Sansa the unofficial heir presumptive.

Targaryen in name she may be, but tradition still doesn't want her as Queen. Much less an heir. Her status as a naturalized Targaryen didn't make her a candidate for the throne, but there were rumors that that wouldn't matter anymore as long as a Targaryen wore the crown, rumors that also liked to deny the truth that Lord Robert Baratheon was the heir presumptive at this point due to their shared blood. 

Fat and loud Robert Baratheon had more of a chance at the crown than she does. While Sansa, Sansa felt a part of her die at the realization that her plans are slipping away between her fingers. The vision of a happy, secure life for her baby was drifting away by the minute. She only wanted happiness, not the crown. Damn the crown. Lord Baratheon can have it. She didn't want it.

But she has to make a decision right now. She is still a part of this gods-forsaken family, even if she will never be queen.

"All right."

She looked up at Rhaegar as she responded, certainty evident in her eyes. Her older half brother gave her a gentle, reassuring smile but resignation reigned in his deep purple eyes.

"Heavy lies the crown, little sister. As part of this family, you wear it like I do," Rhaegar sighed.

"I know, brother, I know," she replied in a tremulous voice as she stared into nothing. Sansa knew that lesson all too well.

Rhaegar sighed again and stood up. "We'll talk about this again after I return from the tour. I will convene the Small Council to discuss the necessary steps. For the meantime, I want you to think and decide on what you plan to do from this point onwards. Consult with Jon Connington as well."

Sansa winced at Rhaegar's last statement, a reaction Rhaegar noticed. Sansa's trepidation increased twofold as she watched interest and suspicion took hold of the King.

"What is the father's name, Sansa?"

The question still rattled Sansa even though Rhaegar has been already goading her to tell him. But she does trust the King, doesn't she?

"It's..." Sansa took a deep breath. "It's---"

A knock sounded on the door. Rhaegar signaled Sansa to wait and asked, "Arthur, who is it?" He then offered her a handkerchief he procured from his pocket. Sansa took it and hastily wiped her face to remove all evidence of tears from her face.

"Jon Snow, Your Majesty," a muffled voice behind the door replied.

 

Sansa felt Rhaegar's eyes on her as she went pale. Staring helplessly at her older brother, the King, she watched as Rhaegar pieced everything together. No, she thought.  _No no no nonononono_

 

"Is it him?" Rhaegar said in a quiet, calm voice.

 

A heartbeat passed before Sansa nodded.

 

Rhaegar took a sharp breath. "Gods, Sansa."

"Are you going to let him in?" Sansa interrupted whatever she thought Rhaegar was going to add. She looked up to see Rhaegar's looking at her with great sadness in his deep purple eyes.

Rhaegar the Sad Dragon, they named him.

 

"Go. We'll talk after the tour," Rhaegar responded. He rose and boomed, "Let him in!"

 

Sansa arranged herself and stood as the guard ushered Jon in.

 

Jon Snow walked in the library in a dashing tuxedo, a reminder to Sansa that there was a ball happening somewhere in the Keep. Sansa gulped as she took him in, her heart racing in her chest. A great sadness overtook her, a dam finally breaking in, the remorse wreaking havoc in her chest again. Seeing him made her realize what she entrusted upon Jon Snow's shoulders without him knowing.

 

Yet. Without knowing yet.

 

He looked back at her, indifference on his face. "Princess," he curtsied. Sansa nodded passively and turned to Rhaegar. "I have to go now. Safe travels, brother," Sansa told her brother stiffly. Rhaegar nodded in response. Sansa curtsied and turned to walk to the door, passing Jon along the way.

 

"Sansa," she heard her brother's voice call out to her. She turned to face him and saw a melancholic fond smile on his face. "I look forward to your performance. Make this old man proud," he referred to her upcoming theater appearance.

Pretending that she didn't feel like dying right at that moment, Sansa laughed lightly.  _Essosian theater education._  "I will, only for you stop calling yourself an old man."

 

Rhaegar chuckled, shaking his head while concealing the sadness that now overcame him. Sansa's heart broke as Rhaegar put on another performance. 

 

Heavy lies the crown, she thought sadly. 

Jon watched brother and sister interact with an intrigued look he hid dismally. Few outside of the palace's staff saw Sansa and Rhaegar interact and the general public thought differently of the King and his half-sister's relationship.

 

He held a vague look for Sansa though, one that Sansa could not read and could not care to read. 

 

Sansa left the library with a heavy heart. She gave the guard a soft, quick smile, then made her way to her room.

 

* * *

It wasn't always bad, having Jon Snow around.

She could remember warm hugs in the middle of winter nights, wrapped by warm sheets with bare naked bodies underneath. Intertwined like lovers, solely in actions but not in words.

Sansa could remember the pain of a breaking heart so vividly it overcame all of those memories. it changed her the way it didn't with him. it shouldn't bother her, he never asked for her. Now that she thought about it... Yes, he never did. He would ask her to come, yes, oh yes, in that deliciously deep, throaty voice only a man in ecstasy would say.

She would oblige him, always have, always will. Because she was desperate. She was shallow. She was stupid.

Eight-year-old Sansa was friends with Jon Snow. Eighteen-year-old Sansa was in love with him.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I love reading your comments! I really do! Thank you for all the attention you've given to this fic so far! Thank you so much! To be honest I'm afraid of replying to each comment because I might give away parts of the story if I do (which is why I'll never be part of the Game of Thrones cast; I'd be fired the first moment I open my mouth lol) but I'll definitely try!
> 
> Anyway, I'm really worried at the amount of bullying this ship is getting at this point. I've encountered throwaway accounts simply made for the purpose of harassing this ship's supporters. Like, come on. For a throwaway account to be made, you need a new e-mail address, a new username, and a new theme, new profile picture, everything! People will go through all of those hoops just to wage shipping wars? How stupid and childish can you get?
> 
> I'm just here sitting with my glass of wine and shaking my head at the young 'uns. Ah, to be young and stupid again. I just don't have time for it anymore.


	5. chapter five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon's Stark grey eyes held so much idealism and excitement back then as he spoke that made Sansa think, oh, maybe boys weren't so bad at all. 
> 
> An update!!!!!!!

Jon Snow didn't always hate her.

 

He didn't when she was an eight-year-old broken Stark ward, dumped and forgotten in the vast halls of Winterfell. She arrived in Winterfell, the Starks' traditional domain, with a broken arm and dark purple bruises all over her body. 

 

When Lady Catelyn Stark saw Sansa, she gasped loudly, covering her mouth when she didn't. Lord Eddard grew pensive, staring at the letter the King sent him along with Sansa. This wasn't the little girl they saw standing regally during ceremonies, holding her head up high with a strange mixture of innocence and haughtiness drawn on her face.

 

Viserys liked to call it an accident but Rhaegar saw it for what it was and did what was necessary. Locking Prince Viserys up was too drastic and drew too many questions, so the new King banished his own brother to the army as a common cadet, calling the act as the royal family's service to the country. He was then to be sent to various campaigns, those that increasingly became more and more traumatizing.

 

One day after he joined the army, he was thoroughly beaten to a pulp in the barracks by unidentified people. Unidentified, because it was all kept hush hush and Rhaegar probably didn't even care. Viserys then spent the rest of his time in the army surrounded by former Northmen rebels who were part of the royal amnesty, who would let him die any second of the day. 

 

But the scars he left on Sansa would stay for a long time, getting to the point that it worried Catelyn and Ned endlessly. 

 

She would avoid the boys then, acting skittish around the men of the house, which was difficult since the Starks only had a daughter, one that acted more like a tomboy than a proper lady. On her first day, Sansa spent the day locked up and crying in her lonely room in the huge castle of Winterfell. The staff would knock on her door to check on her, but the princess would always send them away. Catelyn would plead endlessly, even bribing her with a new dollhouse if she went out, but Sansa never heeded her.

 

Sansa felt like a true princess back then, thinking that crying pretty tears would make the kind Lord and Lady Stark send her back to her King brother. But they never did, as the King send strict orders that Sansa was to stay in Winterfell until such time he decided she should go back.

 

It was when Arya had enough of the worried glances her family shared over breakfast that she marched to Sansa's room and shouted at the door. 

 

"You're a stupid, stupid princess! I wish you weren't here!" she shouted at the door, her small six-year-old face growing red with childish anger. Jory, the butler, moved to pull the little Stark away to avoid embarrassing them in front of their royal guest when to both their shock, the door suddenly opened.

 

With swollen, pink-tinged eyes, Sansa stood with a fiery glare directed at Arya, but the little lady in front of her wouldn't be deterred. Arya stuck her tongue out and said, "Yuck! Take a bath, ugly!"

 

Red-faced, Jory passed the little lady to a maid with instructions that they are to tell Lady Catelyn about what happened. Once Arya was dragged away, he then focused his attention on the red-haired princess.

 

By then Sansa stood sniffing at the air and looked like she was breathing in a scent. Jory realized that the smell from the kitchens was wafting through the air, which made him smile through his whiskers and asked, "They're baking lemoncakes. Do you want some, your highness?"

 

The most peculiar expression bloomed in Sansa's face which made Jory amazed at how an eight-year-old could look so nervous and pompous at the same time. 

 

"Yes, I do," she replied delicately. Jory hid his smile and guided the way to the kitchens. 

 

It was the first taste of the North that Sansa would have and would always remember. She didn't know if what made lemoncakes her favorite, perhaps it was because of its sweet, tangy taste, or because that day Lady Catelyn brushed her hair as she fed on lemoncakes for the first time. 

 

Soon she overcame her initial shyness and started roaming the castle, still avoiding the majority of the Starks. She would sometimes catch glances of the boys, of auburn-haired Robb who made her blush, of Bran who climbed the walls sneakily, and of Arya who she once caught sneaking lemoncakes to her room.

 

Then she met Jon.

 

It was once sweet, Sansa and Jon's friendship. Two young nerds with an obsession for tales of knights, ladies, and kings of the past, with a lot of time to spare. Jon, unlike the Stark children, went to public school, while Sansa was homeschooled as per the King's instructions.

 

During her stay, Sansa found out more about the families she had never known, the Thenns, the Targaryens of old. "The Thenns are the only wildling clan that recognizes the Starks as their liege," Jon once excitedly remarked. "Maybe you'll get to see them sometime!"

 

Jon's Stark grey eyes held so much idealism and excitement back then as he spoke that made Sansa think, oh, maybe boys weren't so bad at all. 

 

* * *

A conference with the minor lords and some of the clan leaders of the Free Folk was to be held in Winterfell, and Jon and Robb can hardly hide their excitement. Jon, bookish and history addict that he is, was exhilarated to meet the modern progenies of the men and women he liked to read about, and Robb, Robb was over the moon over the prospect of finally getting the chance to learn what being  _Lord Stark_  was like.

 

Sansa tried to share in the excitement of the two boys who, over the course of time, have become the friends she didn't have (and badly wanted to have) back in King's Landing. But she was in pins and needles over the whole thing, vacillating between being thrilled to meet the other side of her broken family and being extremely tormented by thoughts of being rejected by them. Will they like her? She was the reason behind her mother's death, after all. The people of the North, from the staff of Winterfell's castle to random people in the street, often commented on how she shared her mother's looks to the point that they wondered how she could be a Targaryen at all. Viserys even liked to point out how less of a Targaryen and more of a Thenn bastard get she was. 

 

She knew what it meant to have someone look at her and not see the person that she was but the dead person she looked very much like. At the tender age of thirteen, Sansa knew much about how that felt. Even now in Winterfell, Lord Ned Stark often looked at her with a sad look on his face, as if remembering someone long dead. As the day of the conference drew closer, he even sat in his office with a grim look on his face and told Sansa of his decision to send her away for a short vacation, far from the sight of those who would attend said meeting. Sansa gave him a look akin to betrayal, and she watched as the great lord looked ashamed at his decision and decided to not go through with it.

 

Taking pity at the man in front of him (not even speaking or _thinking_  of the overwhelming love and warmth she felt for Lord Ned at that moment), Sansa, however, gave him a promise to make herself be as absent as possible while they held their talks. She couldn't forget the look of pure shame and the look of realization that dawned on Lord Ned's face when she said those words with determination, knowing that at that moment it filled her with a savage sense of pride at having looked through an adult's ministrations and saw what it really was: a ploy to separate the living and walking cause of the North's discord from prying and judging eyes. 

 

During the night before the conference, as she sat on her bed with books written about the events surrounding her birth that Sansa learned her first lesson in politics, one that jarred her innocent and naïve mind thoroughly. 

 

She was a calculated mistake, a ball and chain wrapped around the North's neck for the royal family and for King's Landing politics to play with. No wonder Lord Ned tried to take her away from the presence of those who felt that she shouldn't have ever been born, and that Lord Stark housing her in his domain was an obvious betrayal to the Northern cause for independence.

 

She took her books and threw them into the fireplace. She sat and watched as they burned too. But when all of a sudden panic and regret struck her, she foolishly tried to stick her hand in the fire and pulled out the ones that weren't burned yet.

 

Jon found her cradling her burned fingers and biting her lips to keep herself from sobbing loudly. He cried her name in alarm as he ran to her and pulled her into his arms. 

 

"They say Targaryens don't burn, you know," Sansa absently told Jon after hours of sobbing in his arms. She absentmindedly pinched her slightly burnt fingers as she stared into space. Jon just gave her a quizzical look and held her tighter. 

 

"Northerners do, Sansa," he quietly replied after a long moment of silence while they listened to the fire crackle as it burned the books she couldn't save.

 

She never told him why she burned those books and he stopped badgering her about it when he went back to boarding school.

 

* * *

Sansa tried her best to avoid everyone on that fateful day. She really did. But Arya barging into her room with a sour look on her face and demanding that she played hide and seek with them because the other Stark kids were "literally dying of boredom" (really though, Arya was as much as a drama queen as her brothers even though she sought to hide that fact) wasn't part of the plan. Arya threw Sansa's dolls into the blazing snowstorm outside her window just so Sansa could acquiesce to her request. After a loud argument and a short moment where she and Arya searched and gathered her dolls begrudgingly after agreeing that Lady Catelyn better not find out about Arya's sudden bout of rudeness again, Sansa agreed to play.

 

She had been searching for a place to hide in the huge castle when an old man with greying hair that somehow looked suspiciously red like hers found her wandering around in the hallways. 

 

"Alysane!" he gasped loudly, making Sansa turn around to face him. Tears filled the old man's eyes as he hobbled to her with a walking cane in his hand, filling Sansa with dread and anticipation as he drew near. His face looked familiar, she thought then. She had seen him before...

 

Upon reaching her, the old man knelt and held her face in his trembling hands with reverence. "You look so much like her," he said as tears slowly poured from his eyes. "My darling Alysane." He brushed a finger down Sansa's cheek and brushed her bangs from her face. 

 

Sansa suddenly drew back as she suddenly realized who the man was. This was Styr Thenn! She saw pictures of him in one of her books, but none of the pictures of the fierce and outspoken man compared to the broken one she met at that moment. She felt herself tremble and ache at the realization that this... This man was her grandfather.

 

A brief look of hurt crossed his face when she jerked a little away from him, but sorrow and regret quickly overtook his features as he stared at the shock on his granddaughter's face. 

 

"You are of the North, Sansa. Never forget that" he whispered as he pressed something into Sansa's right palm. At that moment a younger man with red hair like hers walked in on them, harried as if he had been looking for the old man everywhere. Alarm lit his face as he saw grandfather and granddaughter together. She recognized him from pictures in the news as Sigorn Thenn, the new Magnar of Thenn.

 

Styr held a small, sad smile for Sansa as Sigorn Thenn pulled him away quickly. Sansa watched as they walked away and stared at what Styr gave to her.

 

* * *

**Present Time**

 

Sansa held the dragonglass necklace and stared at it for a long time. It's been so long since she wore the necklace; she left it buried in her lowest drawer when she swore she'll never let it see the light of day again.

 

She was such an angry child, she mused. She hid the necklace the moment the younger Sigorn Thenn started ignoring her at school. She thought back then that if her other family didn’t want her, she wouldn’t want them back. 

 

But now, it was starting to make sense. Sansa just had to ask around some more. 

 

Along with the box the necklace came with, a pile of old newspaper clippings laid scattered in the box. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this fic, modern Westeros society still holds a lot of love for feudal values. Power is still concentrated in the ruling families we've seen in canon and almost nobody is complaining. Well, I guess? Let's see.
> 
> I didn't explore baby Jon and Sansa's relationship here as explicitly as some might hope because I decided that it's not really central to the story. Sometimes we have these relationships with people where we start out happy and fond of each other, but then we grow up and it's a complete disaster from then on so we don't really remember much about the relationship we had before. Sometimes it hurts too much to remember. Guess we'll figure out later on if that's the case for Sansa.
> 
> Also, I suck at flashbacks. For someone who went on months without updating this fic, you'd think I've been focusing on the material extensively. But, alas, I've been busy with work and studies for months. Still, I hope this chapter is up to snuff. 
> 
> Another thing is, I've been really quite liberal about my use of canon. There are two Sigorns in this fic, the father and the son, because there aren't really other Thenn names out there. I couldn't possibly name one as Brian, right? LOL
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://dame-egocentrique.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](http://twitter.com/damegocentrique) too!


	6. chapter six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps she was hurt and she was suffering not because Jon didn't love her back the way she did, but maybe because she was now starting to learn that she was truly unloveable.

_Hands roam over her body as she writhed and bit her lips to stem the moans threatening to erupt from her throat. There's a kiss and a nibble here and there, warm breaths make a trail down her body. He settles between her legs and she feels strong hands lift her thighs and pull her towards his mouth. Then, a warm lick sends her head back with a loud gasp that felt so, so real…_

 

Sansa woke up with a start, the gasp stuck in her throat. She settled for a few minutes staring at her ceiling while she calmed her breath.

 

Sex dreams are the most mortifying sort of dreams, and Sansa has been having them for over a month now, now she’s five months into pregnancy. This wasn't one of the factors that helped her decide to finally live on her own, but somehow she was grateful for the roommate-free living arrangement she has now. She didn't have to be any more mortified than she was right now.

 

She found the air conditioning in the room still stifling, so she walked to the window and opened it. A gentle breeze was upon Oldstone tonight. She felt it brush her face and chill her sweat-soaked skin. She ran her fingers through her hair and tied it into a bun.

 

Her fingers absently caressed the bump on her belly. She felt movement under her fingers and smiled to herself. It seems she wasn't the only one not sleeping tonight. She started humming a song she heard her governess sing to her before, the song of Florian and Jonquil.

 

The quiet night calmed her senses. Although Oldstone was far from the rural area it once was, the atmosphere was calmer and more tranquil than the always busy streets of King's Landing. It's why she loves this place dearly, which she wouldn't have predicted when she was younger.

 

Quiet wasn't her strong suit before. She preferred the lively and bustling life of King's Landing, where everything and everyone was. She always feared missing out, thinking that she was being more of an outcast the longer she stayed out of King's Landing society. So she went out, socialized, followed the latest trends, idolized high society, and did her best to fit in. She befriended the "it" girls, she even became one of the "it" girls.

 

Quiet just meant that she wasn't doing enough, wasn't popular enough, wasn't busy enough. Quiet was being a nobody.

 

But, quiet was also Jon Snow. Growing up Jon was the introvert in the circle of Winterfell kids, who never liked to speak more than what was needed or required. The boys Robb and Theon (who was the other Stark ward, he with his own set of problematic family members) hogged the limelight, and Jon grew to be content being out of it.

 

Quiet was nights of waiting for the knock on her window before Jon climbed in and staring at his sleeping face on her plush pink pillows. Quiet was listening to him drone about ancient Night's Watch history in the empty library of Winterfell and sitting with him in the grass without talking while the other kids played all around them.

 

And quiet was the sad state of affairs their communication was now in, and the cold angry shoulder he now held for her.

 

Jon. Jon had good reason to hate her. A lot of reasons, actually. There's the old pain surfacing in her chest again as thoughts of grey eyes and broody countenance swirled in her head, pushing up a lump in her throat, making it harder for her to gulp.

 

The overwhelming impulse to weep again struck her so hard that she nearly keels over and give in to the impulse.

 

She never really deserved Jon, did she? There was so much ugliness in her that no amount of loveliness can cover up. Jon, astute as always, saw through her as she always feared he would.

 

She spent years and years fearing the day that he would finally see her for what kind of person she was. She had never been prepared for how it would have felt when it finally happened.

 

She shouldn't have done it. She should have been a better person, been the Sansa he might've wanted. Loved, even. She should have been less of a coward, more like the wildling princess Val he held a torch for back in high school and strong, ambitious Daenerys who now held his heart in her hands.

 

But she knew from the very start that she had lost. She had nothing to blame but her weakness and her cowardice.

 

Perhaps she was hurt and she was suffering not because Jon didn't love her back the way she did, but maybe because she was now starting to learn that she was truly unloveable. What with the virtue of her birth, the controversy of her blood, and the lack of strength on her part that made her so completely incapable of being loved. All the wrong things she's done in the past she's paying for now, pregnant with the child of the man who never loved her.

 

She was stupid to think he ever would. Even though they were friends in childhood she was sometimes especially cruel to him. He wasn't popular or handsome like Robb back then, and all the girls in Winterfell society liked Robb. She would often snub Jon and ingratiate herself to Robb, seeing that the girls would only try to be friends with her just to get to Robb. She picked fights with Arya because her "friends" hated Arya, even though Sansa knew that Jon had a soft spot for the little Stark. She slept with him just to spite Joffrey Baratheon who spurned her during her vacation in King's Landing because she was an inexperienced virgin.

 

She didn't know when her indifference turned to affection then to love, but what mattered was, in those cold, summer nights in Winterfell, being in Jon's arms was the only time she felt she was someone's.

 

But the fantasy had to crash down sometime soon, as it always did when it came to her. It didn't bother her before, him being interested in girls entirely different than Sansa was (surely, she thought then, she could change his mind?) but what did bother her was the awkward, uncertain look on his face whenever she acted the way she truly felt for him. He would try to stay out of her arms' reach then, but she always managed to make him come back, but always to her bed, because it was what got them together at first and what got them together always.

 

She tried to ignore the signs, so sure that he was going to change his mind and his heart's desires. But his senior year in King's Landing University came, and with it, his first meeting with her beautiful half-sister, Daenerys.

 

He dated once in a while, yes, while Sansa didn't just have the energy to do so anymore after Joffrey. It was all right, he always went back to Sansa anyway. Sansa could handle Val, Ygritte, and several other older girls than her. But she could never handle Daenerys. Dany was the trueborn Targaryen, the willful, independent, and wildly beautiful Targaryen everyone loved and worshipped. Pathetic Sansa could never hold a candle to her. It was just the way of the world, in the same manner that Robb was to Jon, Daenerys was to Sansa.

 

For a last-ditch effort she tried to confess her feelings to him. Play on his guilt, make him realize he can't really match up to a girl like her sister Dany. He looked so shocked that night in his small dorm room, but guilt and pity quickly took their place on his handsome face just seconds after.

 

"I can't, Sansa," he whispered minutes after her hurried confession. "I can't. I'm--- I'm in lo-- I'm in love with---"

 

"Daenerys."

 

Finality colored her words like the redness that overtook his face that night. She was so stupid. Why was going after him a good idea again? She escaped her girls' boarding school in the Reach and flew all the way to King's Landing just to get to him. She wanted her actions to be proof of how much she was accepted to do for him, but again, they weren't enough.

 

In his eyes, she saw everything she denied to herself all those years. One, that she was only a dear friend, his student in the ways of intimacy and a friend he could trust but not love. Two, that she was a shallow and weak child, stupid and petty and far from deserving him.

 

She cried ugly tears back then, the ugliest ones she'd ever had. And then, she resolved never to cry like that again.

 

But tears were slowly pouring down her face right now. She has so many wishes right now, so many years-old regrets resurfacing in her mind. 

 

If only she took the pill right after that night in Dorne, she wouldn’t be facing this huge conundrum right now. She wouldn’t have brought more controversy to the Targaryen name, she wouldn’t have proven the people around her right about what they thought about her, and she would’ve been having the time of her life in theater. If the fates continued to play their cards against her, she would have no acting career to be proud of, now that she had to take a leave even though her career was just about to take off. 

 

If only she had to strength to stay away from Jon Snow forever, if only she made the right decisions, if only…

 

A sharp ring interrupted her thoughts and shook her from her reverie. Hastily wiping her face and sniffing, she wrapped her robe tight around her and walked to the wireless phone by her bed. A quick glance at the electronic clock showed her that it was 1 o’clock in the morning. She picked it up, wondering who was calling her this late, and what for.

 

“Hello? Sansa speaking,” she said into the phone. She cleared her throat. 

 

“You highness,” a deep feminine voice responded. Sansa recognized it as Brienne Tarth, her personal bodyguard. Brienne was at guard duty tonight, calling Sansa from the outpost by the gates of the royal Oldstone estate. 

 

“What is it, Brienne?” she asked. 

 

“You have a guest. It’s Jon Snow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sansa's self-loathing was what really made me connect with her. In this fic, I took her self-hatred from the books and blown it up to huge proportions because in this fic she's in her twenties with so many regrets that her teenage self in the books didn't have yet. 
> 
> While writing this fic, I had a lot of thoughts. Numero uno was this: You know when you have moments where you hate these people for all the bad things that they've done and you often wonder whether they're as indifferent and apathetic as we imagine them (just so we can have something to hate them for) or do they even feel bad or remorse for what happened? This part explores that part of life experiences most of us have.
> 
> Also, Jon/Dany! I'm sticking with canon characterization of Jon where he's attracted to strong, independent women. That's why Jon/Dany happened on TV, and is happening in this fic. 
> 
> I also appreciate your comments very much! I love that Sansa/Bobby B shipping @Skitenoir has going on, I am C A C K L I N G!!! Also, Edric Dayne as a Jon alternative sounds really good too! I love it! <3
> 
> Sansa's sexual abuse under Viserys, as suggested in the comments, is something I didn't intend to be a part of the story. But in general, I really like how you guys are coming up with these ideas and your own interpretation of the fic! It's like you don't even notice that I'm just winging this... Haha just kidding! There's a lot going on under the surface and I really appreciate how you guys could see right through them. It's making my writer's heart swell. :)
> 
> Stay tuned, you angsty folks!


	7. chapter seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Age was starting to seep into his bones and with it, tendrils of exhaustion weighing his chest down. Anger was an exhausting emotion to hold on to, that he knew much.

Smoke flitted through the air from the cigarette in between his fingers. He took another drag, watched as the other end lit up, and blew the smoke out of his mouth. King's Landing at late night was louder, much more alive than the silence he was used to in the snowy mountains of Castle Black. He could see the cars lighting up the streets like little ants, off to nowhere and everywhere.

 

He missed the quiet of the North and the solitude he found there. He wasn't made for the city life anymore, that he now understood. Years ago he roamed these streets with his ragtag circle of friends, but most of all, with his best friend and cousin, Robb Stark. That boy was gone now, along with the boy Robb Stark was. All that matters to Lord Robb Stark now is politics, economy, women, politics, economy, etcetera and etcetera.

 

A tiny, faint smile made its way to Jon Snow's lips. They both have grown up now. As a matter of fact, it seems it happened to every single one of them. Even Theon Greyjoy, who never seemed to take anything seriously, was currently wrapped up in family politics, fighting through his own version of adulthood storm.

 

His trail of thought led him to recount every young person he knew from childhood. Robb, now preparing himself for Lordship as Uncle Ned has been planning to retire now. Grenn, straight out of a Castle Black mission and currently raising his first daughter. Pyp, also has a kid now. The little Starks, the willful tomboy Arya in her journey to being one of Westeros' best waterdancer, Bran in his second (or is it third?) post-grad course now, and not-so-little Rickon who, according to Robb, was raising a reputation as some playboy in his private high school.

 

And then... Sansa.

 

Tension slid in his bones again. Last month when he visited Winterfell, Aunt Catelyn had made a passing question about how Sansa was and if anybody knew how she was doing. Arya piped up about how Sansa was doing so, so good in the \theater while nobody except Aunt Catelyn noticed how Jon tensed up at the mention of her name. Aunt Catelyn narrowed his eyes at him, pursed her lips, and said no more.

 

He had always wanted to ask his aunt if she knew what happened years ago because it truly seemed like she did. He wouldn't put it past Sansa though, everyone in the Stark clan knew how Aunt Catelyn and Sansa loved and adored each other.

Then he remembered how Sansa often told him that she wished Aunt Catelyn was her mother and that... The memory sent another ache to his chest.

 

Sighing, Jon crushed the wasted cigarette in his fingers and flicked it to the ashtray beside him. He placed his head upon his hands, truly wishing he could punch himself right now.

 

Age was starting to seep into his bones and with it, tendrils of exhaustion weighing his chest down. Anger was an exhausting emotion to hold on to, that he knew much.

 

Six years.

 

It's been six years.

 

Old resentment flowed into his body again, making him clench his jaw and his fists. But he took a long, deep breath and stilled himself. He's now too old to throw punches at walls and rage against unseen gods who liked to mess with his fate. He's come so far from that kind of man.

 

He itched to take another cigarette to pass the time, let the stress flow, but he wasn't up for clouding his lungs and his mind with fake coping mechanisms right now. Right now he has to take action. Decisive, swift, life-changing action.

 

Jon licked his dry, chapped lips while the wind softly blew on his face. He heard the rustle of the papers behind him and nervously turned to check if the wind blew them away.

 

They weren't. Relieved, he returned to his thoughts. He ran his fingers through his curls and rubbed his face.

 

Focus. Focus.

 

He backtracked to everything that happened in the past months. The NIght’s Watch was not usually involved in royal matters. They had the Kingsguard for that. But the Night’s Watch was Westeros' elite intelligence group for homeland security, and last month's meeting with the King had something to do with his mission right now.

 

He briefly thought of how bizarre it was to finally meet the King, Sansa and Daenerys' older half-brother. It was strange, considering how tangled he was in their lives without the man knowing.

 

Jon Snow brushed off the thought and quickly got straight to the point: the cause of his dilemma right now.

 

Appointed to a top-secret reconnaissance mission, Jon was to spy on the royal family under the guise of monitoring potential threats the royal family might receive from the wildling terrorists. But in truth, it was for routine surveillance, something the Night’s Watch has done since time immemorial. The Kingsguard was too loyal, too secretive with royal matters that they couldn't get through their walls.

 

Now Jon has been to several missions in the past, so he wasn't the naive boy he was before. He took this assignment with a grim, determined face, shook hands with Lord Commander Jeor Mormont and all that. All the time he thought it was going to be one of those missions, the ones that were impersonal, detached, and boring.

 

But this, this rocked him to the core.

 

A recording transcript of a conversation that happened in the King's office right before Jon Snow met with the King sat on a pile on his coffee table. A black manila folder with several pages of hastily grouped papers was lost somewhere in the pile.

 

He thought of what those papers contain. It was an iron-clad secret waiting to become an absolute PR nightmare. He closed his eyes and tried to quash the panic building up inside of him.

 

He was so good at his job. Too good, in fact. He quickly found more evidence and the paper trails with it. Medical records. Ultrasound pictures. Frantic, desperate weeping in a sound file on his laptop that he played over and over again. The King's silent rage he could feel through the soundwaves.

 

Sansa was pregnant.

 

And by the gods, the child was his. The child was his, and King Rhaegar knew.

 

Somehow, he had a feeling this was going to happen. The gods liked to mess with him all the time. Of course, they were going to straddle him with this… this endeavor. He remembered being sick with worry, wondering if Sansa did what he asked of her, wondering about the man he turned out to be now.

 

After his initial panic passed, Jon realized that the mission was jeopardized. He should talk to LC Mormont and persuade him to take Jon off the mission. And Daenerys... Gods, what was he going to do again to her this time? They were in a never-ending on-off relationship for years now. He should've stopped at the first moment he walked through her door again, resuming a relationship with him while spying on her family. He should've just upped and run, chose honor over duty.

 

But he ended up losing to his incessant need to inflate his ego with the knowledge that someone as popular and as beautiful like HRH Princess Daenerys Targaryen. Like a lovesick puppy he followed the scent of his skin on hers and got himself stuck in her bed and her heart again and again. 

 

The thing was, Daenerys, like her family, could be manipulative and sometimes… even histrionic. She was wonderful and mesmerizing, with her domineering personality and unparalleled ambition. It was intoxicating watching her in action back in KLU as she went on those debate tourneys and headed the campus student council. Jon had never met a woman with so much vigor and strength like Dany had, and like the numerous men she’s had in her bed and her heart, they followed her like lost sheep to a shepherd’s call. 

 

But at the same time, it was maddening how sometimes he felt like there was a chain around his neck tying him down to Dany. He was flattered, of course, that a woman like Daenerys Targaryen would even glance his way. He even fashioned himself in love with her. Sometimes he still felt that warmth when it comes to her, but lately, it was fizzling out.

 

Some regrets were making their way to the frontline of his mind again, and this time they were more difficult to push away. 

 

How would she feel, he thought nervously if she found out that he fathered a child with her half-sister? And, what madness would she pull out of her expensive sleeves this time?

 

Jon cursed at himself under his breath. He was, in other terms, royally fucked. He shouldn't have acted with his heart. He should've been a good Night's Watchman and followed his vows of no emotional attachments. He should have stuck to the promise he made to himself and stayed away from the Targaryens for all of his life. Instead, he played with two sisters' lives and was about to get into the crosshairs of the King of Westeros.

 

Seven Hells, King Rhaegar might have been looking to kill him now. And if that happens, no Uncle Ned would save him from the fallout.

 

But lastly, what would he do with Sansa? As much as he resented her for fucking his life up again, what would an honorable man do? A decent, honorable man that Ned Stark raised?

 

A better Jon Snow would have marched right into her house and set up home with her, ready to take on the mantle of fatherhood. He would've doted on her, rubbed her sore feet and back, held her hand through the pregnancy, and did right by her. Her royal blood be damned. 

 

But in this lifetime, he wasn’t that Jon Snow., and he didn't want to do any of those things.  Not with Sansa Targaryen. Not with Sansa, of all the people in this green Planetos.

 

Six years and he still could not bring himself to forgive her. When dawn broke after that night, he left her alone in her hotel somewhere in Dorne and disappeared under the radar. At that time he thought he did the right thing, finally exacting a revenge six years in the making. Gods, he even felt good and damn proud of himself.

 

But no, revenge was still, after all, a bittersweet meal. It came right back and bit him. 

 

Seven hells, he thought. A child. It wasn't Dorne all over again where he could leave her on her own. A child, a gods be damned child growing in her belly.

 

Out of nowhere, he remembered how hard Sansa fought to refuse an abortion, how she almost begged her brother to let her keep the baby, damn her royal reputation to the seven hells if need be. He remembered how she reacted to his desperate questions back then. He remembered how her face turned pale with shock and guilt, and how a sense of foreboding never left his senses ever since.

 

A strange notion crossed his mind, but brushed it off. He didn't have time for Sansa's motives. He's had a lifetime of figuring them out.

 

But right now, they have a long overdue talk to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your comments! I'm so sorry for not being forthcoming about the J/D situation. They're not endgame. No. Just no. Like I said, Jon was "attracted" to this type of women, not "fell in love". They're two completely different things. Come on.
> 
> Also, it's all right if you leave this fic behind! I'm sorry for disappointing you!


	8. chapter eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all the hurt Sansa has caused him, he still cannot let another person, a child, his child suffer for it.

Jon's steps echoed off the granite floor as he was ushered by the butler to the library where "her highness will meet with him". Jon knew from the floor plan he gathered that Sansa's room was adjacent to the library he was about to enter, and so it will make her easy to go and easy to leave.

 

He kept getting distracted by the interior of the castle and by his knowledge of the castle's history. It was a former stronghold of the extinct House Mudd and was rebuilt by Duncan I Targaryen for his commoner wife, Lady Jenny Oldstones, whose ancestry could be traced back to the ancient community residing around the castle.

 

The story behind Prince Duncan Targaryen and Jenny Oldstones' relationship was fodder for the papers when the prince chose to abdicate for love. Jon nearly smiled to himself. It was such a Sansa thing to do, to live in a castle that was built out of true love and romance.

 

During summer break, when Jon and Robb were back from boarding school and Sansa was about to leave for wherever the crown would take her, Sansa used to write him the old-fashioned way, talking about her travels and sending him postcards along the way. He remembered how Oldstones was her favorite, how the view from the hilltop made everything small and beautiful in her eyes, how the wind blew just right.

 

But he can't think about those letters now. Thinking about the Sansa he knew in his childhood wasn't going to help his cause now. 

 

He also burned the letters right after she left Winterfell for the last time, anyway.

 

His heart raced as he approached the library's double doors. He watched with nervous eyes as the butler primly knocked on the door and announced his arrival.

 

Upon receiving no response, the butler, who introduced himself as Dontos, opened the door and found the room empty. He gestured Jon to come inside and to wait while the princess made herself ready to meet him.

 

Jon chose a loveseat to sit upon and wait for Sansa to appear. Amidst his nervousness, he noticed that the library was beautiful. Across from where Jon sat, rows of shelves filled with books were pressed against the walls, while two stairs meeting at the center led to another level where rows of shelves stood parallel to each other.

 

If his son would be like the boy he was, he would love this place, Jon thought absently. He felt an ache in his chest at the thought.

 

Wiping his sweaty hands on his jean-covered thighs, he waited for Sansa, and waved Dontos away when he offered Jon some tea and biscuits.

 

It took five minutes before the doors opened and a pale-faced Sansa in a thick nightgown and robe entered. Jon hastily stood up as royal protocol demanded, and Sansa immediately gestured for him to sit down.

 

Jon sat down and watched her as she walked to the chair across him and sat, looking at him with indifferent eyes. 

 

But Jon noticed her clenching her pale fists as she placed them on her knees, and whatever cover she had, it was blown from the beginning.

 

She looked impeccable for someone whose sleep was disturbed, he noticed. However, his eyes were drawn to the noticeable bump on her abdomen, his throat going dry at the sight.

 

By the old gods and new. 

 

Anger erupted inside him anew.

 

"It's true, then," he said, his voice sounding raspy. He cleared his throat as he gestured towards her stomach, watching as a look of shock crossed her features. Thoughts raced inside his head and he cannot settle on one because  _gods damn it--_

 

"Look, Jon--"

 

"Don't lie, Sansa, if that's what you're planning to do," Jon growled as he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, sporting an intimidating look in his eyes.

 

"Gods damn it, Jon Snow," Sansa growled back, a fierce sneer on her beautiful face. "You let me finish my words now or I swear---"

 

"You swear what?" Jon stood up and glared down at Sansa. 

 

"You swear what now, Sansa?"

 

Confusion started to cloud her face while anger remained. "What's going on with you, Jon?" she asked, sounding annoyed but very curious.

 

Jon paused and clenched his fists, emotions warring on his face. Pain, he felt it, anguish and anger and loathing racking up a storm in his being right now.

 

He was so focused on one thing right now, the one thing he can't take his mind off ever since he read the files and heard the recording.

 

He wiped his face roughly and looked away.

 

"I know what you're trying to do," his voice croaked as he spoke. His emotions would burst any minute now.

 

"I know what you're going to do, Sansa," he added, facing the glass wall to avoid looking at Sansa. He couldn't see her face right now, couldn't look at it.

 

"What am I trying to do, Jon? I want to know," Sansa calmly asked him.

 

Somehow her apathetic voice grated on his nerves and made him want to just scream and shout at her right at this moment.

 

"I also want to know how you found out. I'll have to make necessary arrangements for my privacy's sake," she added.

_"_ I've been assigned to protect the royal family from insurgents," he lied in the same apathetic voice she used at him. Turning to face her, he saw understanding dawn on her face.

 

Silence reigned for a few seconds between them, as both gathered their thoughts and the words they want to say.

 

"You still haven't answered my other question," she noted.

 

Gritting his teeth, Jon replied, "It's what girls like you do, Sansa. Don't you dare deny it."

 

In fact, what he was about to say was from the recording he had, but of course, Sansa wasn't going to know that.

 

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Sansa countered him, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

 

He took a deep, calming breath to still the storm in his chest. But no amount of deep breathing could calm him down now. He's a poor excuse for a man living in pure emotions and instinct right now.

 

"You wish--- You want me to never claim my child as my own?" Jon's voice was starting to rise as the emotional kind of pain made their way to his chest. He scoffed. "You think-- You would dare parade my child as someone else's? You would-- You would take away a child from their own father?" He didn't know what was worse. Was it the crashing down of all the dreams he had built up long ago or the burning out of the dreams he didn't even have the opportunity to even dream?

 

This child, the baby he made with Sansa, he could love it. He could. He will protect this child from all the hurts in the world. He will not leave them in this world without having a father they can really name their own, the way Jon often wished for in Christmases that always saw him lonely and parentless. 

 

Years ago he promised to himself that he would never father a child and then leave them parentless. It was solidified when he planned to take up the black in Night's Watch, deciding that a life of danger and espionage wasn't meant for child rearing. But now...

 

For all the hurt Sansa has caused him, he still cannot let another person, a child, his child suffer for it.

 

Years of wishing for a father, who in his mind someone so much like his Uncle Ned, could never be wiped from his consciousness. 

 

So yes, marriage it is. Sansa could have the marriage she wants with him the unwilling groom, but at the end of the day, her feelings or opinions didn't matter to him, only his son. 

 

(He's sure the child is a boy, judging by the copy of the ultrasound joyously claiming the baby is, indeed, a boy.)

 

"I don't hate you that much, Sansa," he admits breathlessly, his grey eyes boring into her intensely. It was a lie. He hated her now more than ever. He wasn't sure if he was still doing the right thing, offering his hand in marriage to a woman who wouldn't respect his rights as a father.

 

He could almost see it now. Some strong, gallant man Sansa obviously adores, holding a little boy with black curly hair in his arms. Comforting the little boy during thunderstorms, like how his real father was deathly scared of during his childhood. Holding Sansa and his son in royal events. Hearing Jon's own son call the faceless man "Papa". Being the father Jon couldn't be in the future Sansa wanted.

 

For all the years Jon wished he had a father with him and stood by while wishing he was a Stark like his cousins, a trueborn son of Lord Eddard Stark, he felt the loss too keenly like a sharp knife slicing his skin. 

 

He, a fatherless man, abandoning his son like Jon's own father did. 

 

The chance to do better, to fill the hole in his heart, was slipping right through his fingers.

 

"You can still be a father, Jon, but a husband... Marriage is different," Sansa tells him after a long silence, still not looking at him. She sounded like she was making an effort to convince herself rather than to convince him. 

 

He wasn't having any of her machinations right now. This time, he was going to force her. This time, he will be stronger.

 

"But we have to. You have to. You don't have a choice," Jon stepped towards Sansa threateningly. 

 

"You owe me," he ground out. He watched as horror overtakes Sansa's face, blooming like a fresh slap imprint on her face. He imagined an ace on his sleeve floating and falling to the ground.

 

"You owe it to our first one," he whispered.


	9. chapter nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But she had to get out this first, do the right thing, settle this tragedy with Jon once and for all. She will make her apologies and politely ask him to get out of her house and her life forever. Surely he didn’t really want to do everything that he said, didn’t he? He couldn’t.

**TRIGGER WARNING!!!**

**********************************THERE IS A SCENE ALLUDING TO ABORTION. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

**Six Years Earlier**

 

Loud banging could be heard outside the door. Sansa listened with one ear, half-dazedly staring at the streams of blood swimming on the ceramic tiles. She listened as the banging coalesced into shouts, and then grew louder and louder. 

 

Suddenly, the door flew open with a loud bang and a dark-haired man rushed in. 

 

"Sansa," she heard him rasp, gasping and taking in lungfuls of breath. His feet, which probably ran all the way just to see her, took a step closer but stilled.

 

_Did she do the right thing? She did, didn't she?_

 

Sansa looked away from the red streams and up to see her former lover's face. He was deathly pale and looked about ready to die from shock as he stepped backward, pressing his back on the bathroom door and clenching the knob with his other hand. He suddenly and quickly approached her, held her shoulders, almost slipping as he did. 

 

“What have you done?” He shook her, his face wrought with desperation. 

 

Sansa looked away. She didn’t answer and let the silence stretch, staring at her hands on her lap. Water continued to dribble from the bathtub by her side, filling the small room with its nonchalant sounds.

 

She could hear his breath quickening, his chest rising faster and faster by the second.

 

“Sansa, what have you done?!” He asked louder this time, more forceful in shaking her shoulders when she didn’t reply. Pain lanced through her abdomen at his actions, but she didn't mind as a thought sprung in her head.

 

He cares. 

 

 _He cares_ , she absently thought. _But not enough._

 

It gave her the strength to do what she was about to do. Anger and pain lanced through her, making waves and firing up nerves all over her body. 

 

She looked up, tried to convey her anger, but only ended up crying. Tears soundlessly poured on her face. She bit her lip as anger was subdued by the overwhelming guilt and shame she felt bloom somewhere in her body. Probably from her painful abdomen. Probably from the emptiness she suddenly felt.

 

Confusion filled Jon Snow’s eyes. His dark brows knotted together as he stared at her with those panicked and confused grey eyes. 

 

She pushed him.

 

Jon didn’t even flinch, just stared at her in confusion even more. Sansa suddenly wanted to rip his face out like the way he ripped her heart out. 

 

 _“This is what you deserve,”_ she hissed, a sob catching in her throat as she spoke. 

 

Understanding dawned on his handsome face and horror overcame his features. Sansa liked that. She liked it very, very much. 

 

“No,” he replied determinedly, but his voice caught up in the end. “No... No, you did not just...” he rambled, staring at anywhere but not her, taking in the scene around Sansa. He saw the pills on the sink and how many she took. 

 

He’d see they were abortifacients, stuff she got from someone named Maggy. Procured during a moment of rage and heartbreak. 

 

He stared at them for a long time, shock written all over his face and body. And then, “Gods, no... Sansa, please... Gods, no...” Jon’s voice trailed off and turned into sobs. “Gods... Oh gods, no...”

 

He crumpled into himself and turned around. He started punching at the walls while sobbing loudly and murmuring “no no no” all the time. 

 

Sansa watched him with grim satisfaction, her tears emptied out of her body. If she wasn’t going to have him, she might as well lose all of him. 

 

* * *

 

**Six Years Later**

 

And just like that, Sansa’s world crumbled again. 

 

Jon’s words echoed in her head like millions of recordings playing, over and over like a broken record player. And did it just get hotter in the room? She thinks it did. 

 

“J-Jon, I...” her voice trailed off and caught in a sob. She covered her mouth with a clenched fist, removed it, and tried to talk again, but something was clogging her throat, she couldn’t speak, what---

 

She opened her mouth to speak again but this time, she found that she couldn’t breathe. A loud long beep was all she heard. Jon’s mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear a thing. Her pale hands grasped at her throat as she coughed and coughed and coughed, tears streaming down her face. 

 

Memories were running through her head at the speed of light

 

_Blood between her legs... Jon’s loud sobs and his loud cursing and his broken heart, breaking and bleeding like his fingers and the space between her thighs... So stupid so stupid sostupidstupidstupidstupid—_

 

“Sansa!” She heard a distant shout. 

 

She tried to catch her breathing. _Breathe in, breathe out… Just like the doctor said, Sansa…_

 

Her sight was starting to blur and then static, like a broken TV, and then…

 

And then everything went black.

 

* * *

 

**Sometime Later**

 

Sansa stared at the ceiling while she waited for her breathing to stabilize and get back to normal. Doctor Tarly fussed over her as Jon Snow sat on a chair close to Sansa’s bed, his legs crossed and his eyes watching her closely and anxiously. 

 

Doctor Samwell Tarly was frowning while checking her vitals, before loudly proclaiming that her blood pressure was thankfully normal. He sent Jon another glare as he said so, and only started to relax when Sansa’s staff collectively sighed breaths of relief. He started packing his things in his bag, leaving instructions to Sansa’s head of staff, Mordane, about Sansa’s medications and care after her bout of an anxiety attack. 

 

“As for you,” Sam then faced Jon, who looked away from Sansa with an unreadable expression on his face. “Don’t do this again,” the stout doctor commanded him. 

 

Jon nodded resolutely and started staring at the floor. Sansa gave Sam a reassuring smile and thanked him kindly for his help. Then she waved them all out, asking for a short time to rest and relax for her sake.

 

A part of her wanted Jon to leave, but how could she? This talk has been a long time coming, and Sansa has thought of this day for ages, imaging ways how to apologize and how to beg for forgiveness from Jon. Of the million ways she imagined how this would go she never for once imagined having an anxiety attack in the midst of it, and worse, discovering that her doctor was Jon Snow’s longtime friend back in KLU. 

 

Despite the loneliness and misery, Sansa was feeling all throughout her pregnancy, her friends were the brightest lights of her days, including Dr. Samwell Tarly. Unlike any doctors who would be overly glad and obsequious at the prospect of having a member of the royal family as a client, Sam truly cared about her. After her previous doctor, her great-grandfather Dr. Aemon Targaryen passed away with no children to pass his properties to, his protege Sam took over his private practice and became Sansa’s new doctor. 

 

So it was inevitable that Sansa would tell him about who the real father was during her checkups, and Sam would know what happened the instant he saw Jon and Sansa together, with Sansa blacked out from another anxiety attack. A little tiff happened between the two friends, Sansa only half-listening, with Sam fuming at how Jon managed to get information about Sansa from his clinic and Jon outraged at being friends with Sam who never told him about Sansa’s state. But then Jon looked ashamed at his actions as the doctor raged at him, but Sam, in his righteous anger, didn’t mind him at all. 

 

Sansa didn’t have the energy to worry about Sam and Jon’s quarrel. In fact, judging by the steadily spreading weight on her chest, she didn’t have the energy to do anything at all again. 

 

But she had to get out this first, do the right thing, settle this tragedy with Jon once and for all. She will make her apologies and politely ask him to get out of her house and her life forever. Surely he didn’t really want to do everything that he said, didn’t he? He couldn’t. 

 

But the Jon Sansa knew would go through all of it because he already said it. Honor was a big thing among Starks and it has given them the respect and admiration all through the centuries of their leadership. Of course, Jon was going to be honorable and do the right thing. 

 

Furthermore, she saw that Jon wasn’t above using the past as leverage against her. This was truly something he wanted, she realized, and it would only anger him more and push him to be reckless if she tried to stop him again.

 

Lastly, this was what Rhaegar wanted. 

 

Sansa sunk into her bed deeper. What to do, what to do? She didn’t want to think and honestly, she’d rather sleep forever and ever, but can she do that?

 

She can’t. She promised someone she can’t do that again.

 

She touched her belly and ran her palm on the bump. She felt Jon’s eyes on her as she did, so she closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she can’t feel them on her.

 

“I’m sorry,” she blurted. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to see Jon’s face right now and trying to stem the hot wave of shame rushing through her being.

 

There was only silence after she spoke. He wanted to hear more, she assumed.

 

“I’m sorry… for— for hurting you back then,” she said in a softer voice.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied abruptly. Suddenly her eyes opened and her head turned to face him as pain lanced through her chest at what he said.

 

There might have been something on her face that sort of threw Jon off. “I meant, I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he backtracked, shame surprisingly written on his face. "We have bigger issues at hand—“ he nodded at the Sansa’s baby bump and gulped, “—right now.”

 

Sansa’s brows furrowed and she turned to fidgeting with the blanket. She was at a loss. After what happened, she found she couldn’t care anymore. 

 

After all, this was the least she could do.

 

“Oh. Yes,” she responded softly. “Like… Like the wedding.”

 

She felt Jon’s dark eyes on her again. She didn’t dare look at him. “So you agree?” he asked.

 

It took a few heartbeats before Sansa replied. “Yes.”

 

A long inhale.

 

Exhale.

 

“Thank you." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, truly fucked up. You want to hear something even more fucked up? The first scene happened. In real life. To some guy I know. The whole thing was bewildering and I was gobsmacked the whole time he was telling the story. He was angry, he was broken, he was in grief for years. But I noticed something while he was telling this story, so I just had to ask. 
> 
> "You still love her, don't you?" 
> 
> He had this very conflicted look on his face that I'll never forget. Not that I was with him romantic styles or even sexual styles, but the whole thing left me thinking about his story years after we talked. How could I forget it? He was still hoping they would meet again, he later confessed, and sometimes, he even asked about her whenever he was home since they were childhood friends and neighbors too. Turns out she was involved in some soul-searching after what happened. Turns out she also asked about him too.
> 
> Like, why? But he did this thing and then she did this thing and then he did this thing. How can someone recover from that??
> 
> And when the he-did, she-did thing happened to me too, I slowly began to understand him. That's when I learned that when you truly care for someone, there's no coming back from that. You'll always want to try especially when the failure doesn't rest in your relationship but in your own personal troubles. You might rest for a while, but you'll eventually want to try again, especially when things are better now. The only question is, until when?
> 
> Last I heard they were talking again. She apologized for what she did and he looked ready to forgive her. 
> 
> Here's to the two lost lovers. May they find their way back to each other.


End file.
